Cher Frere
by PrettyLittleWreck
Summary: After Sapphire has a hard day at school and gets suspended for getting in a fight with another girl, she goes down to the cove and speaks to Faro, who comforts her and helps her get through her pain. It's better than it sounds, I promise! Mild violence and mention of blood, but it's not too bad. And characters act a little OOC. This is my first fan fic for Ingo:)


Cher Frère

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ingo or the characters! This is just a little story I came up with, but I might continue it if enough people like it (I seriously doubt there'll be a lot of people who do, but o well.) Anyway, I read the serious for the third time and I thought about how Faro calls Sapphire little sister but she only calls him Faro. So I thought it'd be cute if she called him part of her family, so I wrote this real quick**_**. **_**This takes place about four years after the books, and it might be completely wrong because I haven't been able to finish the series-only the first three so I apologize if it strays from the series. This is the first story I've written for Ingo but I want to write more because I like the books so much. Anyway, hope you all enjoy! (**_**Italics mean flashback and Sapphy's thoughts.)**_

Sapphire sits on the rocks next to her best friend, Faro. Her mind drifts to school, and the girl she'd gotten in a fight with. Sapphire wasn't usually one to get in fights, but this girl had pushed it. Leslie Mathews was a wicked girl, small and cruel. She had small, beady eyes set far apart and a long nose, reminding Sapphire of a rat.

_That's what Leslie is, really. A rat._ _A dirty, dirty rat._ Sapphire thinks to herself.

_"You shouldn't hang around her, Sarah." _Sarah was the new girl at school, and Leslie and her friends were showing her around.

_"Her whole family's crazy. Her dad left her mom for another woman, and her mom found another man in a matter of months."_ It was a lie. Sapphire's mother hadn't dated another man for practically a year and a half.

_"And anyway, she's the craziest one. She disappears for hours by herself, and no one knows what she does."_

_ "But it's not crazy to stay to yourself." Sarah objects, and Leslie frowns. Sarah had potential. Sarah could easily be one of the 'popular girls', following Leslie around like a puppy. _

_ "It's not staying to herself that makes her crazy, Sarah, it's what she does._

_ "What does she do?" Leslie leans in real close, as if she's telling a secret, but her whisper is agonizingly loud. _

_ "I think she goes and talks to her brother."_

_ "So? I talk to my brother…"_

_ "No, her half-brother. The one her mom and her mom's boyfriend had. He was three years old, and she killed him. Took him and drowned him in the sea." _Sapphire's mother and her mother's boyfriend Roger gave Sapphire and her older brother Conor a baby brother, but he died at three. But Leslie was wrong. Sapphire did not take him and drown him. Sapphire kept him as far as the sea and Ingo and the Mer as she possibly could, in fear that Ingo would steal him from her like it took her father. The baby, Jack, died of some kind of disease. Sapphire had nothing at all to do with it, and she clenched her fists when she heard Leslie say she drowned Jack. Sapphire adored Jack. She played with him and let him play with Sadie and loved him to bits. She was just as heartbroken as her mom and Roger when he died.

_"That doesn't make sense. Why would she drown her half-brother, and how can she talk to him if he's dead?" Sarah asked. Leslie rolled her eyes at Sarah's ignorance._

_ "She drowned him because she didn't want her mother to have him in the first place. Ever since her dad left, you see, she hates men. She hates her mother's boyfriend for replacing her dad and she hated her mother for moving on so quickly. So when her mom and step-dad weren't looking, she took him down to the cove and held his head under until he stopped breathing." Leslie said this as though she had seen it, but she didn't even know about Sapphire's and Conor's special cove. She says it as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, too. As if it makes sense that Sapphire snapped and killed her brother. She even glances Sapphire's way and gives a little smile when she sees Sapphire can hear everything she says. Sapphire wants to scream at her to shut up. Leslie even has the audacity to make eye contact with Sapphire and smile, a small, rat smile that makes Sapphire want to dislocate her jaw. Then she couldn't say anything about Jack, her precious Jack. _

_ "And she doesn't actually talk to _him._ She talks to herself, but she pretends she's talking to him. She knows she's done a bad thing, and she knows that her mom and brother probably hate her for it…" suddenly Sapphire is out of her chair and in front of Leslie. It's lunch, so no teacher tells her to sit down or sends her out of the room for disrupting class. Sapphire grabs hold of Leslie's hair, right at the roots, and curls it around her hand before pulling Leslie to her feet. Everyone around her circles them, and Leslie tells her to let go. But Sapphire ignores her. Sapphire ignores everyone. Instead she takes Leslie's ace and pushes it into the brick wall. Mercilessly, she grinds her face in the hard, rough brick before dragging it across it, leaving a trail of blood. People scream. Teachers run and try to make Sapphire let go of Leslie, but Sapphire only tightens her grip and continues to grind Leslie's face into the wall. When she finally lets go, Leslie is covered in blood. Her face is scratched and looks like something out of a horror movie. She is screaming and crying, and while her group rushes to her side and tell the teachers Sapphire attacked her for no reason, Sarah stays still. Leslie got what she deserved, didn't she? Who is she to go around telling lies about other people? Why is no one on Sapphire's side? _

_ "I am not a murderer! I did not drown my baby brother! I did not drown my Jack!" she says it over and over. The worst part is, she never once raises her voice. She glares down at Leslie and says the same thing over and over, and doesn't stop repeating her words but she says it perfectly calmly, keeping her voice even. Even while the teachers drag her to the principal's office, she doesn't say anything but those words._

"Sapphire." Faro waves his hand in front of her face, but she doesn't respond. Sapphire had been talking to him, but then she'd suddenly gone quiet and stares hard at the sea, a curtain of hair hiding her face from him. Curious, Faro tries to connect his thoughts to hers, but instantly flinches away. Never before has he seen such emotions in his little sister. Her mind is full of anger, sadness, and most of all, pain. Just glimpsing Sapphire in such pain and anger makes Faro worried. She's in so much pain, and he doesn't know why, but he also doesn't want to go digging. He doesn't want that anger turned on him, and he knows she might become upset with him if he digs too deep. He says her name again and puts his hand on her shoulder. She jumps a bit and looks at him.

"Sorry, Faro, I was just deep in thought." she plasters on a too cheery, too bright smile, and Faro instantly knows it's false.

"What's troubling you, little sister?" he asks softly. Faro is brave-far braver than any person Sapphire had ever met-but he can also be gentle and kind.

"Just something some girl at school said…" Sapphire trails off, but Faro won't let her get lost in her thoughts again.

"What did this girl say?" Faro asks. Sapphire goes quiet for a while, but Faro doesn't push. Finally Sapphire speaks.

"She was telling the other girls that I took Jack down to the cove and drowned him." now Faro is shocked. Though he never met Jack, Sapphire told him all about her new brother, and Faro knew she loved him dearly. When he died Sapphire came down to the cove and he sat with her for hours, comforting her while she cried. Even though the human habit confused him, he hated it when Sapphire cried. He knew it was how humans showed their sadness, and he didn't like it when his little sister was sad. But why would anyone say such things to hurt Sapphire? Faro knows Sapphire isn't one for violence and also knows she didn't start the fight. That's just not how she works.

"And what did you do?" Faro asks. He suddenly wishes very strongly that Sapphire retaliated, even though he knows it's the wrong thing to do and that she should've ignored the girl and pretended she hadn't heard. But what she said wasn't right, so why should Sapphire be the one to do the right thing while she is being called a murderer. Why should she stand there and let that girl say that she killed her own brother, when Faro knows she wouldn't even dream of such a thing? For the first time in his life, Faro wishes he was human, so that he could have been there and defended her. But once Faro thinks about being human, he quickly discards the thought. He'd take his tail over legs any day.

"I did a horrible thing, Faro." Sapphire pulled her legs close to her chest and wraps her arms around them before laying her head on her knees.

"But she said a horrible thing, so that makes you even." He points out.

"But Faro, I ground her face across a brick wall." Sapphire realizes Faro won't know exactly what bricks are, so she explains. "Bricks are rough and jagged, like stone, and I took her face and dragged her across it. There was a trail of blood. You should've seen her, Faro, she was so scared and I enjoyed her pain. I wanted her to hurt as much as I do. O Faro, I must be a terrible, wicked person." A sob escapes her throat and her shoulders shake. Faro hates seeing her like this. It makes him feel incredibly protective of her, and angry to think that anyone would dare hurt his Sapphire this bad.

"You're not a terrible person, Sapphire. That girl is terrible for saying such things. I know you would never harm Jack, let alone drown him. Sapphire you're a great person. You've saved Ingo from the Kraken and helped heal the Tide Knot. You've saved so many lives, I'm not sure if even Saldowr can count them all!" Faro took her hand in his. She glanced up at him.

"And Roger was so angry with me. Mum was busy at work so he had to get me from school and I thought he was going to explode. And I wanted to tell him what Leslie said, but I couldn't get the words out. I couldn't even tell the teachers what she said! So now everyone thinks I'm just some seriously messed up teenager who takes her anger out on others." Faro could feel her frustration, anger, sorrow, and her loss without even reaching out to her mind. All her feelings were just spilling out of her, like water slipping through cupped hands. Faro's tail is starting to get dry, but he refuses to leave her.

"It'll be alright, little sister. No matter what this _Leslie _says, you and I both know you never hurt Jack, and that's what's important." He says Leslie's name with such disgust, Sapphire can't help but feel her heart swell with gratitude for him. He must think she's so weak, to sit here and cry her eyes out over such a stupidly _human _thing, but he says nothing and supports her. It was the same when Jack died. Sapphire knew Faro wouldn't understand _why_ she missed Jack and she knew he wouldn't feel the same, but he stayed with her until she couldn't find any more tears to cry. They both fall silent, Sapphire wiping her eyes with her free hand and Faro giving his silent comfort, keeping her small hands locked in his large one, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. After about an hour, Sapphire sighs.

"I've got to go, Faro. Roger'll be mad enough that I left, so I don't want to stay down here too long. I don't want him to climb down here and see you. She stands up.

"But since I've been suspended from school for three weeks, I have time to spend with you. Mum and Roger are both gone tomorrow, so I'll be able to sneak out." Faro smiles, pleased with the fact that something good came out of this despite everything.

"I'll see you then, little sister." He says and she nods.

"Good-bye for now, cher frère." She smiles at the puzzled look on Faro's face. before he can ask what it means, she explains.

"It's French, Faro, for dear brother." She says and then makes her way back up to the cove, where she'll climb back up to the little cottage she knew as home. Faro slips into Ingo happily, his heart swelling with pleasure. Sapphire called him her cher frère, her dear brother. He did several somersaults in the water, laughing. And as he swam back to tell Saldowr about these exciting new words and their meaning, Sapphire watched the ocean from the top of the cliff and smiled, knowing that Faro had made her pain just a little more bearable.

**So what'd you think? Is it good, bad? I hope you guys liked it. Even though the friend I let read it doesn't know the characters, he thought it was good. Review, please, and tell me what you think. All reviews are appreciated, even the bad ones!- PrettyLittleWreck **


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